Missouri Protesters Get 2nd Amendment Lesson

Protesters in Ferguson, Missouri, are getting a lesson on the Constitution, a document most of them seem completely unaware of.

The lesson is coming from members of the Oath Keepers organization who showed up in the city Tuesday donning protective vests with handguns holstered on their belts and carrying those rifles with 30-round magazines that so frighten leftist gun grabbers, bed wetters and the social Marxist collectivists elites. Missouri is an open-carry state.

According to media reports, the Oath Keepers were confronted by protesters asking why they were allowed to openly carry weapons. “I’m happy that we’re able to defend ourselves,” one unidentified Oath Keeper replied. “It’s been our right for a long time.”

Actually, given that self-defense is a natural right, it has always been there. And both the U.S. Constitution and the Missouri State Constitution provide protections designed to remind government functionaries of its presence. Unfortunately, St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar is apparently unfamiliar with the concept, as well as the constitutions of the United States and Missouri.

Commenting to a reporter from the laughably incompetent, state-propaganda-media Reuters news agency Belmar condemned the Oath Keepers’ presence and vowed to work with prosecutors to see if the men had broken any laws.

The men were there to protect a journalist from the Infowars.com website who was in Ferguson covering the rioters who were making mischief on the anniversary of Michael Brown’s death, according to one of the men who identified himself to media only as John. But Alex Jones of Infowars said the website had not asked Oath Keepers for protection.

During the height of protests in the wake of the grand jury’s decision not to indict officer Darren Wilson in Brown’s death, Oath Keepers protected a number of stores from looters, providing a service the local police were either unable or unwilling to perform.

If you are unfamiliar with them, Oath Keepers is group of current and former military, law enforcement and first responders who have vowed to uphold their oaths to the Constitution and oppose all Constitutional encroachments. They “declare that they will not obey unconstitutional orders, such as orders to disarm the American people, to conduct warrantless searches, or to detain Americans as ‘enemy combatants’ in violation of their ancient right to jury trial.”

Of course, media reports on the Oath Keepers’ presence were not without information from the anti-freedom, anti-constitutional governance organization, the Southern Preposterous Lie Center, which called Oath Keepers a “fiercely anti-government, militaristic group.” Because, as we all know, standing for the Constitution is “fiercely anti-government” in the minds of statist progressives.

As a reminder and for St. Louis County Police Chief Belmar’s and the county prosecutors’ edification, the 2nd Amendment reads:

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

And from the Missouri State Constitution, Article 1, Section 23:

That the right of every citizen to keep and bear arms, ammunition, and accessories typical to the normal function of such arms, in defense of his home, person, family and property, or when lawfully summoned in aid of the civil power, shall not be questioned. The rights guaranteed by this section shall be unalienable. Any restriction on these rights shall be subject to strict scrutiny and the state of Missouri shall be obligated to uphold these rights and shall under no circumstances decline to protect against their infringement. Nothing in this section shall be construed to prevent the general assembly from enacting general laws which limit the rights of convicted violent felons or those adjudicated by a court to be a danger to self or others as result of a mental disorder or mental infirmity.

"A veteran - whether active duty, retired, national guard, or reserve - is someone who, at one point in his or her life, wrote a blank check made payable to The ''United States of America'', for an amount of ''up to and including his life.''" – Author Unknown"If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace." – Thomas Paine"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.” – Thomas Paine

Veterans, you swore an Oath...

Oath of Enlistment

I, (NAME), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.

Officers Oath

I, [name], do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.

Site Dedication

This site is dedicated to the memory of John William Adams (1925-2006), Marine and Oath Keeper extraordinaire.

John Adams, at the age of 16, lied about his age to join the Marines so he could fight against Imperial Japan in the Pacific. His enlistment date was December 10, 1941, just three days after the attack on Pearl Harbor (see below). As a Marine rifleman, he fought the Japanese from island to island, across the pacific, including at Iwo Jima. We may have good men, but we never had better.

Until his death in 2006, he was a dedicated patriot who still took his oath to defend the Republic deadly serious. May God grant you the courage to do likewise.

Stewart is the founder and Director of Oath Keepers. He served as a U.S. Army paratrooper until disabled in a rough terrain parachuting accident during a night jump.

He is a former firearms instructor and former member of Rep. Ron Paul’s DC staff.

Stewart previously wrote the monthly Enemy at the Gates column for S.W.A.T. Magazine

Stewart graduated from Yale Law School in 2004, where his paper “Solving the Puzzle of Enemy Combatant Status” won Yale’s Miller prize for best paper on the Bill of Rights. He assisted teaching U.S. military history at Yale, was a Yale Research Scholar, and is writing a book on the dangers of applying the laws of war to the American people.